Kimi: one of the best qualifying performances this year

After equalling his best qualifying performance of the season to date at the Valencia Street Circuit this afternoon Kimi is in positive spirits, and with good reason. The Iceman has shown strong race pace at every venue so far in 2012, and with conditions suiting the E20 the Finn is looking nowhere but up…

Q: Kimi, how was qualifying for you today?

KR: It’s one of the best qualifying performances for us so far this year. We did get the same position before in Malaysia but we had a penalty and didn’t start from there so it’ll be nice to actually sit in P5 on the grid this time. With another tenth from my lap I could have been in second place so you can see how close it is.

Q: How easy will it be to move up the order here?

KR: For sure it’s not that easy to overtake, but if someone ahead is struggling with their tyres then you have a better chance. Our car has always been good on tyres in the race so that could give us an advantage.

Q: What are you thinking in terms of race strategy?

KR: We have to start with the soft tyres we used in qualifying and we’ve looked okay on long runs with them. From there we’ll just have to see what happens.

Q: How is the car improving?

KR: We’re making small improvements with the steering and we’ve found some other things to make the car a bit easier to drive so we are certainly going in the right direction. For us it’s better to be hot than cold, so hopefully it will stay hot and that should help us get the best from the car.

2 responses

– I’m not surprised in any way. It was expected that there would be crashes and other things. It’s a bit junior-like fumbling at times, but he does drive fast, one can’t deny that. I’m not terribly surprised that he is so fast, Räikkönen commented on his team mate to MTV3.

Räikkönen admits that he himself still has some adapting to do after being away for 2 years.

– It’s probably about how everything happens. Of course it’s quite the same but I haven’t been in these weekend-business for a long time. Maybe I had to search for it at times, but nothing worse, Räikkönen said.

Kimi to MTV3 after the qualification:

– If I could have improved just a little bit, then my position would have improved many positions, but that’s what it’s like. Vettel might have been a little ahead of the others, but otherwise the first sessions were quite even. I think that we have a good car to tomorrow’s race. At least we are going in the right direction in qualifications, Kimi said.